You know, at one point I thought that working retail was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But then again- I’ve busted my ass plenty of times, whether in this life or the last. For this life, the first thing that comes to mind is that time I was forced into indentured apple farming. In my past life, I was constantly going above and beyond just to prove my worth. I was running circles around those other clowns sometimes.

But the point I’m trying to make is… I don’t remember. Bottom line is that military training is on an entirely different level to all those things. Now I know why so many of these guys dodged the draft for ‘Nam. You know the crazy thing? If it weren’t for Nam sending some of the best blood across the sea, there wouldn’t have been a shortage of good associates in the mob. Tangent, sorry.

Anyways- the training regiment was gonna be broken up into three parts, one for each month. Late March is when we’re planning to strike. The idea is that the weather will be the most ideal by then- not too hot, but not too cold. December will be dedicated to pure endurance training. After the first week, all our armor will be completed so we’ll be doing the bulk of it in our armor.

There would also be a lot of situational training in that time. Nearby cave systems were flooded with gas, and we would swordfight in them to simulate the low visibility. Let me tell you- masks fucking suck. They make it much harder to breathe, since you’re straining against the filter. They limit your visibility by a lot, too. But they’ll protect you- that’s all that matters. And of course, the gas was kept as somewhat of a secret. I know we all understood the importance of it not reaching enemy hands.

Speaking of that first month- I had an odd conversation with my wife around that time.

---

I’d been dead tired, as I often was… although, not as bad as I normally would be. Guess the endurance training was working. After a long, hot shower, I went up to the desk where my wife was writing in her diary and began massaging her shoulders from behind.

“How was your day, baby?” I asked her, and she giggled.

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary, really. Just the usual stuff- helping make sure the castle doesn’t fall apart while cleaning every now and then. Not much different from what I was doing in Manehattan.” She said, and I smiled.

“Glad to know you’re still doing good.” I said as she moved to get up. I joined her on the bed, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my chest fluff. Her breathing tickled a little bit- but I could live with that.

“I love you so much…” She mumbled, and I smiled.

“I love you too, sweetie.” I’d already started closing my eyes, and was about to pass out when she asked, out of the blue-

“Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to have foals of our own?” it was so out of left field that my eyes shot open.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Her body shifted a little bit, which I interpreted as a shrug.

“Well, one of the maids had a baby recently, and… and she seemed so… happy?” After a few seconds of silence, she continued, “She’s always talking about how she means the world to her, and how she’s never felt happier… Leona, would I be a good mother?”

“Absolutely, you would.” I replied without skipping a beat.

“Better than my mother was?”

“That’s not a very high bar to leap over, but yes. By a mile.” I closed my eyes in an attempt to sleep again, when she said-

“You’d be a good mother, too.” I smiled wide. While I could never imagine myself having a kid, it felt… nice to hear that, I guess. I imagined all the good times I had growing up with Mamma, and couldn’t help but picture myself in her place.

“Maybe someday, we can have a surrogate. Maybe.” I was positive she was smiling.

“That’d be lovely. I bet your Mamma would be happy to have a granddaughter or grandson.” I couldn’t help but snort.

“Oh god, don’t let her near the kid. She’ll spoil them rotten, we’d never stand a chance.” I said with a chuckle. I could still remember being born- I remember how choked up Mamma was getting, how proud she looked.

Then I glanced towards the clock and sighed. “Until then, let's try and get some sleep.” I said, and was answered by a faint snoring. I smiled and nuzzled her forehead before trying to get some sleep on my own.

Not too long after, I realized why we were getting so emotional- we were both about to go into heat. Still though, the conversation stuck with me more than it should’ve, I feel. Who knows- maybe someday I’ll need an heir? It’s just… the more I think about it, the more appealing motherhood seems to me.

Whatever.

---

Anyways, the second month would be dedicated to sword and armor training. So as it turns out- armor isn’t as simple as you’d expect. There’s a certain skill to rolling with strikes to avoid damage to yourself or your armor. You know- laws of physics and all that. I was already decent with a sword, but I’d gotten a bit rusty since I stopped those classes. That, and I rarely ever rely on my cutlass that much. Why would I when I have eight bullets to work with?

---

I was partnered up with Sinan that first week.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Thunk! “OW!” I yelled, my side getting whacked by Sinan's sword. It struck right at the edge of the plate and stung like hell.

Correction. I was getting my ass handed to me by Sinan that first week.

“You fight like a dairy farmer.” He said, and I cocked an eyebrow in confusion.

“A bit crude for a poet.” We were both wearing our armor, but the gas mask had the filter unscrewed. Since many of us were still learning the basics, Ulysses was kind enough to grant us this one boon. Our voices were a little muffled, but we could still communicate easily. At some point, I need to see if a radio can be incorporated into this mask.

Sinan just chuckled. We’d been at this for hours at this point.

“ALRIGHT MAGGOTS! TAKE TEN!” I breathed a sigh of relief, pulling my mask off and lighting a cigarette.

Sinan and I found a building to rest against, where he asked me to bum a light.

“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” I said, and he nodded. We were taking heavy gulps from water canteens, just letting our heart rates slow. You know, one of the things I was most worried about when it came to this armor is what happens when you have to pee? Turns out, you just sweat it out instead.

After a few moments of silence, he finally spoke up.

“Your sword. Mind if I saw it?” He asked, and I just shrugged. I forked my sword over and noted an odd look in his eyes. He handled it delicately, as if it were a small child. He turned it around and raised it, the sunlight glinting off the old blade, revealing old nicks and cuts caused by regular use. Despite its age, it was in quite good condition.

He then nodded to himself, apparently satisfied. “You should be proud of such a fine weapon.”

“Well to me, it’s just a longer knife I use when I run out of ammo.” I shrugged as I holstered it. “I named it Cthulhu, though.” He nodded,

“Tell me- who smithed it?” He asked, and once again, I shrugged.

“Don’t rightly know. It was made in a factory- with hundreds of others like it. I bought it at an old navy surplus store.” After a few seconds, his face grew into a grin.

“So you’ve named your sword, yet you have little skill for it?” I shrugged once again.

“Give me a pistol and I’ll shoot the balls off a fly, blindfolded and drunk out of my mind.” And call me a coward- but I was perfectly fine with picking people off from beyond sword range, thank you very much.

“What I mean to say is that you must respect your weapon, Cthulhu. It wants to hunt. It wants to kill. Why would you deny it its purpose?” I just snorted.

“Then who’s gonna feed my pistols?”

“You. From what I’ve heard from you, they’ve seen much bloodshed, no? Cthulhu dreams of the day in which she may rise up and taste the blood.” I just blinked. That was a little freaky. I looked over and saw he was using the butt of a cigarette to light up another.

“That’s neat to think about and all, but… I just don’t think I get it. That’s like saying a grill yearns to cook a steak.”

“Would a grill save your life in battle?” I put a hand to my beak in thought.

“Suppose it wouldn’t.”

The rest of the break was spent in silent contemplation.

I’ll be honest- I’m still not sure I understand it.

---

Another noteworthy thing happening in December was the Blue Moon Festival. I never brought it up in my journal before because quite frankly, it’s basically just Christmas but for griffons. But the only reason I bring it up now is because this one was, in my opinion, more noteworthy.

I’d decided to essentially rent out an entire restaurant for the Xanthous team and told them they could invite whoever. Sadly, though, Mamma wouldn't be attending.

That night, it was almost time to start, and we were waiting on Rosco- so I was standing out front having a cigarette. I saw him turn the corner with his family and smiled.

“Thought you got lost.” I said, pulling him in for a quick hug. He was wearing his sheriff’s getup, with a blue uniform and a black cowboy hat- I was just wearing my normal garb.

“Train was runnin’ a bit late, sorry about that.” He had his wife and young boy with him- the kid couldn’t have been more than five. “This lovely lady here is my wife, Sophia.” He then turned to his kid with a warm smile. “This here lil’ varmint is Clyde.”

Clyde looked at me with a wide grin and held his little hand out. “Howdy, ma’am!” He said, and I shook hands with him. “Nice to meet ya!” He said, and his mother giggled.

“Nice to meet ya, Clyde! Your daddy’s said lots of good things about you!” The kid beamed with pride, and kinda reminded me of his father.

He kissed his wife on the cheek. “Why don’t you two make yourselves comfortable? Daddy’s gonna have a quick smoke before dinner.” He said, and I wordlessly whipped out my lighter. Once we were both alone outside, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“He’s a good kid.” I said as I lit up another smoke. “You oughta be proud.”

“Ain’t gotta tell me twice.” He said with a smile. “He’s the best thing to happen in my life and in fact, he’s a large part of the reason why I signed up for all this.” He took a contemplative drag from his cigarette, saying “I just wanna make sure the world's safe for him, you know?”

I nodded in response, and he continued- “It’s a messed up world when there’re kids out there who gotta steal to survive. How can you even call a place like that civilized?” I couldn’t help but snort.

“I was one of those kids, once. And I’m sure the twins were, too. You think less of us for it?” I felt a little offended, not even gonna lie. He quickly backpedaled-

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. And besides. Do you think I wasn’t one of those kids?” He asked, and my eyes widened.

“Sounds like you’ve got a story to tell.” I said with a smirk, and he shrugged.

“Not really. I just got thrown in jail one day and decided to change myself a bit. Went back and finished school, studied law, met my wife and joined the guard. Eventually, I got voted in as the sheriff.” He tossed away the cigarette butt and lit another one.

I sighed. “You’re a good man, Rosco. Don’t ever let that change. Normally, I can’t stand the type of people who wanna be cops.” I muttered, and he laughed that same stupid chuckle.

“Oh, Kee kee kee! That’s because most of ‘em were jocks who peaked in high school. They think that since they have a truncheon now, they’re all that and a bag a’ chips!”

I let out a hearty laugh. “Ah, true that! How do you think I took over Equestria’s criminal underworld? Cops are either easy to bribe or just straight up dumb as hell. In fact, that’s part of why crime flourishes in disadvantaged communities- because the police have shit funding, they’re even cheaper to get on your payroll.” The cycle of poverty is a ride in which I am quite familiar with. I looked over, and Rosco grimaced.

“Can we… change the subject? Thinking about the state of the world is not what I wanna do right now.” Understandable.

“Well, shit. Might as well go inside after these ones.” I gestured to our smokes and he nodded.

Overall, the turnout was quite decent. I had my wife of course, and Rosco had his family. Adrian brought his parents along, and Sinan brought his father. The twins just showed up by themselves. Of course, Sinan’s dad got a bit of extra attention, but it was hardly my first time seeing a zebra. After all- I used to buy weed off of one back in Ponyville.

The dinner went quite well; especially for Dee, who made fast friends with Sophia. Although strangely enough, I noticed they were talking about motherhood a lot.

Strange.

---

The third month would be dedicated partially to firearms training, and partially to survival. I questioned Ulysses decision to make firearms training such a minor part of this whole ordeal, but he did raise a good point.

The gist of it is that we would all be fighting some serious CQB- where accuracy at range isn’t as important. Not to mention, many combatants would be essentially incapacitated by the gas.

It was quite fascinating, seeing many of the people's reactions to gunfire. You know, I was shooting guns as a human when some of these fucks were still just an itch in their daddy’s balls. And because of the aforementioned skill, I was going to be helping Ulysses with the training.

So far, I’d been quite happy with my team's progress. The way we had it figured out is that since Sinan, Adrian, and Fin were the best with melee, they’d be armed with a blunderbuss each- as a secondary backup weapon. Rosco, Jos, and I would each have four pistols- though, theirs would be the standard issue model, rather than my double barrel designs.

Speaking of the blunderbuss, we’ve found a way to further optimize reloading. Rather than a bag, the powder charge was held in a small plastic cylinder, kind of like the kind you get M&M’s in. That cylinder was wrapped in oiled cloth, which functioned like a wad. The balls would be kept in a similar cylinder also wrapped in paper. Each shotgunner would have two bandoliers, one for powder and one for ball.

The blunderbuss itself, however, is pretty bog-standard. It had a 14 inch cast-brass barrel and no stock, to the horror of the ATF agent reading this. I was alright with that, though- after all, I never really was a dog person. Anyways, due to the flared muzzle, aiming was an issue; so the doctrine was that you’d point at something's center of mass then fire. You could easily clap one or two enemies with a single shot.

We were all essentially in a firing line practicing reloading and shooting drills for the first day.

Another thing that occurred to me was how used to the smell of gunpowder and the loud noise I was. Gunpowder does not smell good- it’s very pungent and smells like straight sulfur. As Rosco so elegantly put it;

“Whoo-wee! Stanks like my livin’ room on chili night!” I just snorted.

“Oh, please. It can’t be worse than the time I ate a bunch of this weird, fancy cheese at the gala.” I said, cringing. “Ugh… I thought my wife was gonna strangle me that night, and not in the fun way, either.” Sinan snorted and chuckled.

“Gods above help us if I’m ever forced to drink milk.” He said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. We all shared a good laugh, but apparently, Adrian wasn’t very amused. He spoke up, blushing lightly.

“Any way we can discuss something other than our habitual flatulence?” Even Fin spoke up, quietly muttering ‘I agree.’

I swear, we were a few Crayola’s and a tub of Elmer’s short of being Marines.

“How ‘bout the fact that my ears are ringin’?” Jos spoke up, using a finger to try and clean some imaginary wax out.

“You’ll get used to it. A lot of the time, I don’t even notice the tinnitus until someone speaks to me.” I spoke up, and for some reason, Jos didn’t seem very comforted from it. Thankfully, though, our masks and gear did help with muffling the concussive power of gunfire.

---

Of course, survival training was… new. We learned all sorts of essential things, such as; How the heck do you eat hardtack?

We were all in little “camps” set up outside the city wall- since the march was so soon, we had to get ready to travel. In a medium-sized barrel next to our campfire were our daily provisions- which included coffee, salted meat, some kind of grain or vegetable, pepper, cigarettes (which is arguably part of the most important food group) and…

“The fuck is this?” It was some kind of dry, dense cracker, called hardtack. I grabbed mine and clacked them together, to no avail. Then I attempted to bite into it, but it just made a clacking sound against my beak. Ulysses, who was probably laughing at our bewilderment, spoke up-

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. That’s how I lost my beak.” He looked at us with a wide grin, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Shit, that might be the first time I’ve ever heard Ulysses crack a joke. “I will give you a hint, though- put it in a bag and break it down.”

So, I did just that. I grabbed a cloth bag and used the iron-reinforced butt of my pistol as a makeshift hammer. I just decided to break three up for now, then dumped the small chunks into a pot. I added water from my canteen and let the hardtack soak up the water.

“Ugh, why can’t we just have canned food?” Adrian winced, his high-class taste buds not used to such basic food. He was in charge of making the coffee.

“Money and weight. A wagon full of these provisions will be lighter and cheaper than a cart full of canned foods.” Sinan spoke up, and he was absolutely right.

“No one said we’d be eating five star meals as soldiers.” I said as I mixed around the hardtack crumbles, which thankfully had absorbed most of the water. Then I grabbed some salt pork out of our provision barrel, sliced off some fat and let it heat up in a frying pan over the fire. Apparently, that barrel would last us about three days each.

Once the pan was nice and hot, I added the hardtack mush and began stirring it around with a wooden spoon. I added a small pinch of salt and a good amount of pepper and let it brown.

“Well… it looks edible.” I said dubiously. I grabbed a spoonful and tried it- and was overcome with mediocrity. “It’s okay.” I said with a shrug, and everyone else on my team followed suit to try making it for themselves.

“We’re gonna have to get creative, though. I ain’t sure how I feel about eatin’ this stuff everyday.” Jos spoke up, and I agreed wholeheartedly.

“I might try and convince the king to allow a sort of ‘treat ration’ just to cut into the monotony. I’m thinking canned food and cured meats once or twice a week.” I know for a fact that there was a booze ration we’d be bringing- but that was for special occasions, mainly. “But you’re absolutely right- we’re gonna have to get creative regardless. I’m sure someone wrote a book on this stuff- I’ll have to look into it sometime.” Surely, someone’s encountered the same woes as us.

The rest of that day was spent doing normal training- lots of marching, practice setting up camps, medical training, etcetera. Due to the nature of our role, we couldn’t really bring a medic down- so we had to make do. It was gonna be dangerous- but we were almost prepared.

---

Today was the last day of training before the campaign started. We would be given a week off to party, say goodbye to our families, what have you- but of course, it’s never easy.

I still had work to do after all. But until then, I was gonna spend some quality time with my wife. She’s been quite excited for me- after all, I would soon be completing a goal I set for myself a long, long time ago. She was also happy because all my hard work and training has led to some unexpected side effects.

“Oh my Celestia!” She exclaimed as she hugged me from behind. “Your flanks! Look at how toned they are!” I looked back and realized holy fuck, she’s right!

So I had that going for me. There were also some final preparations I had to arrange with the king before we got this campaign started.

Everything was coming together smoothly, and I felt pretty confident that we could win this.

Now there's a standstill in the war, repeating what's been done before. It must come to an end- a few will transcend! :3

As always, thank you for reading! Likes and comments are always greatly appreciated!